Jammu based media persons on Thursday warned the Jammu and Kashmir government against attempts to gag the media in the state by registering an FIR against a Srinagar based senior reporter Mohammad Saleem Pandit.
The Press Club of Jammu (PCJ) has conveyed anguish to the government for lodging the FIR against Pandit, who has been discharging his professional duties since 2,000 in the Kashmir valley for a national daily.
Saleem Pandit, Assistant Editor of the newspaper, had reported about the
attack on the tourists by stone-pelters soon after the killing of 13 terrorists on 1 April 1.
The police, though confirmed that two tourists were injured in stone pelting somewhere in Khanabal in Anantnag but even then the FIR has been registered.
Ashwani Kumar, President of the PCJ, alleged that the state government not only harassed the senior journalist by adopting different means including campaign to malign him in social media through certain people, but they also registered a case against the scribe in the police station under Section 505(2) RPC.
He warned that the state government would be responsible for any harm caused to Pandit who was allegedly being threatened over the phone by unidentified people.